


Red Spring

by Miss_Von_Cheese



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Love, M/M, Politics, Social Justice, and/or - Freeform, it's as you wish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Von_Cheese/pseuds/Miss_Von_Cheese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is back for real. He's kind, sharing, selfless, and generous, probably even more than he used to. And that's not a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Spring

Bucky had always been good to him, even when he would call him names and pretend not to care, even when he was a nonchalant kid smoking cigarettes to impress the girls, he always made sure Steve was okay.

He protected him at all costs, physically, morally, financially too. Steve often refused his help but Bucky found ways to pay things for him, to show up at his landlord’s place and pay his rent for the next three months, break into his apartment to put food in his cupboards, pretend he had just bought three shirts that were way too small for him but that would fit Steve perfectly, and other ways of showing he cared.

 

So when they moved in together after he found his old memories back, Steve wasn’t surprised that Bucky proved himself as generous and selfless as he had always been. At first, Steve thought it was perhaps some kind of guilt that made him share everything he had, but Bucky didn’t seem distressed or anxious when they put all their things in common. It felt normal to him.

The day he moved in, he placed all of his clothes in Steve’s drawers, even the underwear. The first time Steve put one of his boxers by mistake, Bucky shrugged and, really not understanding what was bugging him, explained that they were here to be worn. He also wore Steve’s clothes sometimes, even after he had started buying his own clothes and picking what he wanted for himself, so that was not just to try adapting to a free world. He just found normal that they should share everything. And Steve didn’t mind, he had wanted to find him for so long! Living with his best friend and feeling safe was the dream.

The first time Steve asked him if he could steal some of the cookies he had bought, Bucky was offended. “Are you kidding me? Of course, that’s for you too! What’s mine is yours, don’t be silly!”

 

Steve didn’t notice anything different. Yes, Bucky was even more sharing and generous than he used to but that wasn’t something to be worried about. He would also have given Bucky anything, that was what they had, they were like brothers. Steve would always share his stuff with him.

He started to notice how much Bucky had changed when he saw him in the streets. Steve was not a selfish guy, he volunteered sometimes, he gave money to charities, he would always spare a dollar for homeless persons. But he did it casually, without overthinking it. Bucky on the other hand would never give less than twenty bucks, sometimes fifty, and go to an ATM if he didn’t have cash on him. He would stop for a while, ask the person if they needed something, a place to sleep for the night, food or special care, talk with them, give them the luxury of smiles and attentions before he left.

Steve told him that it was very generous of him to do so but he didn’t have to give so much, he was allowed to keep the money he earned for himself. Bucky shook his head. “What do you mean? I have much more money than I need, I’m fine!”

 

The day he found him on the phone with his banker, Steve knew they would have to talk. Bucky seemed annoyed.

“What do you mean, I reached my limit for this account? Yeah, please, explain simply… hm… hmm…” he nodded, tapping his foot on the floor. “So what you’re saying is that I have too much money for my account, so I need to open another? But… what kind of problem is that, if it's full then I don’t need more funds! I… Yeah, I don’t know, give it to the poor or something!”

Steve grabbed the phone, excused him to the banker and hung up. Bucky was confused as they sat together on the closest chairs. But when Steve asked if he wanted them to have a shared account, his face lit up.

“You mean… like we did back in the days, with the envelope under the mattress? Can we do that at the bank? Yeah, that would be great, so when I get paid by SHIELD you can spend it too!”

Steve didn’t mind having a shared account, if they could help each other with administrative details and balance a single checkbook it could be easier for both of them. He trusted Bucky, and Bucky trusted him.

 

Bucky was careful, they never were in the red, yet his days were filled with random acts of generosity towards strangers. He would buy that thing a kid wanted but his mom couldn’t afford, he would tip waiters like a prince, he would give some of the food he just bought to that young father with a baby waiting in line with two cheap pasta bags, or pay for large families’ orders at McDonald’s when the parents were down to counting their cents. He even paid in advance several sessions to his therapist for people whose insurance didn’t cover these fees, and one time while waiting for Steve to get out of the hospital after a mission, he helped a desperate teenage girl who couldn't afford an abortion.

He offered to let their door open for one of their young unemployed neighbors to stop by and take food from them whenever she needed to. The woman was shocked, she refused, arguing that she couldn’t just do that, she would not sneak into their apartment and steal food, so Bucky suggested instead that she would come and ask when she was in trouble, they would give her what she needed. Since she was still embarrassed to ask, he gave her a few bagels, two steaks, a bag of vegetables, and finally agreed to get something in return: she had studied 20th Century History and Geopolitics in college, she would lend him all of her notebooks and documents because he had some things to catch up. From that moment on she sometimes dropped by to ask for their help -which Steve was happy to give-, and Bucky was happy to have access to a lot of knowledge.

They didn’t talk much about Bucky’s generosity, Steve didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. When he asked him about it, Bucky simply replied that he had way more money than needed, that it was meant to be shared. Why would he have more rights than anyone? They were all human beings, not animals. And that way of thinking made Steve’s heart swell. Bucky seemed well balanced and happy to live this new life.

 

One night while they were watching TV, piled on the couch, Bucky brought back from the kitchen a huge bowl of popcorn he placed between them, then proceeded to heat it slightly with his metal hand. He almost spilled the bowl when the president appeared on the news, and he clapped his hands, mouth full of popcorn.

“I love this guy!” he told Steve, as if his best friend hadn’t noticed yet. “He’s a bit too moderate, you know, but that’s not his fault he can’t do whatever he wants… but he’s got some fucking good ideas! I don’t understand Obamacare was not created sooner, that’s crazy, resources are meant to be shared, it can’t work any other way...”

Steve took some warm popcorn from Bucky’s hand and looked at him with a smirk. The bright red star stood out on his arm, it had taken a while but Steve finally understood him.

The new Bucky Barnes was a Communist. And that was a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick vignette I wrote because too many posts about Bucky imply his dark side _is_ communism -as if it were Nazism, for example,- and confuse 'communism' with 'communist dictatorships'.


End file.
